Visibility into item availability on any shelf in any channel is a dream that many retailers have been chasing. As majority of retailers still grapple with achieving real-time inventory visibility, we’re already seeing retail leaders move one step further by offering multiple order fulfillment services including “buy online, pick up in-store” (BOPIS) and “buy online, return in store” (BORIS).

As profitable order management becomes critical to a fashion business, it becomes paramount to overcome challenges that arise from inefficient and disconnected processes – which heavily impacts profit margins and customer experiences to a degree that no retailer can afford.

Let us have a closer look at how SAP S/4HANA for Fashion omnichannel capabilities empowers retailers to deliver what their customers want quickly, efficiently, and at the lowest possible cost - for both the fashion retailer and the customer.

1. Global Inventory Visibility

A major key to order management is real time inventory visibility - which is undoubtedly the hardest to achieve. Being able to know where inventory is located and what the best fulfillment source to allocate from is paramount to fulfilling orders.

SAP S/4HANA for Fashion leverages advances in technology to deliver a solution that helps fashion businesses with multiple sales channels to act as one – combining wholesale, retail and manufacturing businesses.

As progressive retailers begin to use omnichannelselling as a strategic advantage, SAP S/4HANA Fashion delivers an infrastructure that connects all selling channels to retrieve stock levels in real-time and drive profitable outcomes. For example, if fashion retailers have inventory in a particular store that is performing poorly against their sales plan, they can leverage a single view of inventory to locate and transfer these stock in order to sell them in another store or sales channel.

Sales Associate Empowerment via In-store Kiosk with SAP S/4HANA Fashion:Leveraging a single pool of inventory, fashion companies can provide inventory availability to sales associates. This way, in instances of OOS, associates are able view item avaliability at nearby stores and source intelligently from another store to fulfill in-store customer orders for out-of-stock products.

Click and Collect with SAP S/4HANA Fashion:Fashion companies can extend real-time inventory availability to customers. For instance, customers checking a fashion retailer’s website can determine the availability online and, the quantity available of an item in-store. Customers are also able view item availability and opt for "click and collect" service by choosing their preferred store.

By leveraging the fashion ERP solution, fashion companies are able to manage orders more efficiently and allocate constrained inventory to multiple channels according to defined business rules. This way, inventory can be reserved and promised during the processing of customer orders, enabling brands to fulfill demand for their products from anywhere, reducing stock-outs and missed revenue opportunities.

2. Order Fullfilment Logic Built for Optimal Inventory Management and Stock Protection

Together with the SAP Customer Activity Repository (CAR), SAP S/4HANA for Fashion helps optimize every phase of the fulfillment processes with powerful logic to ensure that every order is fulfilled from the most efficient locations – including Endless Aisle orders placed within and from stores – to meet customer expectations.

However, gaining a single view of inventory availability is just the beginning. The next step: optimal inventory management and stock protection. For example, at the beginning of the season, a retailer may want to maintain maximum in-store inventory levels. If business rules are not in place, especially in a click and collect or ship from store situation and the last item of a particular style in-store has just been shipped out, the chances for in-store customer dissatisfaction are high. For this case, business rules can be used to optimize order fulfillment directly from the nearest distribution center instead of the store. Because this rule fulfills most items from the DC, in-store inventory is kept for the in-store shoppers.

Order Online - Ship to Customer (inventory is sourced from DC or Store ) : In instances of consumer direct transactions, fashion companies can set parameters that regulate where the order is sourced from - regardless of whether its from stores or DCs. The best location is selected based on cost, logistics, distance, etc.

Meeting Tomorrow’s Demand with SAP S/4HANA for Fashion

The selected use cases above related to SAP S/4HANA Release 1709 are designed to depict and visualize the value ofS/4HANA Fashion ERP solution, and its possibilities when connected to a fashion company's extended IT ecosystem - including POS, e-commerce and CRM.

Our blog series will continue to concentrate of several S4HANA Fashion use cases and delve deeper into topics such as omni-channel returns, endless aisles, store as a fulfillment center and fulfilling OOS products. The idea is to showcase how building an intelligent ERP suite helps deliver visibility and a seamless experience across all channels.